Glasgow Film Festival: Mid90s review

If you are a fan of the TV series Spaced, you will remember a scene where Tim and Daisy bond over watching skate videos. Making increasingly more audible and physical reactions as the falls and hits as people fall off their boards get more and more extreme and intense.

This was the scene in the Glasgow Film Theatre during the Opening Gala UK premiere of Jonah Hill’s Mid90s.

They were one voice reacting with uproarious laughter one minute and shock and horror the next as the lead character Stevie (played by Sunny Suljic and based only slightly autobiographically on Hill), learns to face what life throws at him, whether that be ollies, grinds, girls or punches; pick himself up and get back on the board.

It is a testament to Jonah Hill’s directorial debut that if you didn’t know, you would believe that Mid90s was made in the Mid 90s.

Shot entirely on 16mm, it has the look and feel of the skate videos that the character of Fourth Grade wants to produce.

Soundtracked by some of the period’s greatest hits (who didn’t have a copy of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged gig on at every gathering?), Hill showcases some real talent behind the camera. Particularly during a house party scene that features some Superbad use of editing and camerawork. Now that is superbad meaning good of course, as was the vernacular in the Nineties.

There is a rawness to the film that is reminiscent of Larry Clark’s Kids. Although not as extreme or exploitative, it is honest in its portrayal of what the youth culture was engaging in at the time.

Mid90s is about finding your place in this world and Jonah Hill may have found his place in the industry. Albeit a future where he is behind the camera instead of in front of it.

4 stars

All This Mayhem - review

In this modern age of having every single detail of an upcoming film spoiled and analysed on the internet before its release, it is a great feeling when you watch a film you know very little about beyond the trailer and emerge at the end genuinely surprised and thrilled by the end result.

This is how I felt watching All This Mayhem.

I went into it expecting a talking heads documentary about the skating rivalry between the Pappas brothers and Tony Hawk but what I got was something much deeper, darker and more disturbing than I had imagined.

I didn't recognise the names Ben and Tas Pappas from my skating experience (which amounted to playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on the PS2) and to film goes onto to show exactly why that would be the case.

The Pappas brothers took the Vert skating scene by storm, first in Australia and then the US, beginning a long rivalry with Tony Hawk, continually trading places in the Top 3 in competitions with Tas becoming World Champion in 1996.

The Pappas boys embraced the rock n roll lifestyle that went along with that world and their loud, brash style both on and off the track and like the fabled 900 trick, it resulted in both of them crashing and burning on a public stage.

There are hints and signs early on as to where the story is headed but it takes more twists and turns that one of Tony Hawk's links.

Tas makes for a refreshingly candid, entertaining and honest interviewee as he looks back over that turbulent time.

Not only is it interesting to see how the skating scene and tricks have evolved over the years but also, rather amusingly, the increase in quality of the recording equipment to capture these events.

You do not need any prior knowledge of the skateboarding world in order to enjoy this film which makes it accessible and worth a watch by everyone because at no point are you ever board and it never skates around the darker aspects, instead ramping up the tension to deliver a terrific documentary amid All This Mayhem.

4 stars